Spring Break Reunion
Like spring breakers everywhere, Melanie Hansel is gearing up for a wild ride when she and three of her best friends ditch their daily routines for a few days of fun.
"We're trying to have a spring break, but no bikinis and sand," Melanie says.
That's a big change from the spring 11 years ago when 48 Hours first met Melanie and her four friends on the sunny shores of Daytona Beach, Fla. Jim Axelrod reports.
In 1991, Melanie was 19 and, hunting sun and fun, had only two things on her mind: beer and boys.
The five college freshman from Louisville, Ky., were ready for the time of their lives, which is exactly what they got – a killer party.
Today, the five remain close friends, and four of them are getting together for a spring break reunion in Atlanta. Watching themselves in action 11 years ago, the women are at times embarrassed.
"I would not want to show that to the people that I work with," says Brandy, adding, "because I'm not that person anymore."
Today, they can't believe the way they wore their hair and they're appalled by the mess they always left in their hotel room. But they are most embarrassed abut what happened when two of their boyfriends tried to crash the girls' spring-break party.
Rob and Joe, who were dating Melanie and Shannon Willis, got a big surprise when they drove from Louisville to Daytona to surprise the girls.
In three days, they had been replaced - by Sean and Todd. Melanie and Shannon dumped their Louisville boyfriends on national TV.
Shannon Willis, the fifth friend who couldn't get to Atlanta for the spring-break reunion, is a married, stay-at-home mother of two today. Of the five, it is her life that has changed the most.
"I love being a mom," she says. "I don't know what I'd do without my kids."
But she doesn't regret a minute of the time she spent in Daytona.
"That was what being 19 was all about," she says, "having a good time. But now I'm 30, and this is what 30 is all about, having my family."
In Atlanta, Shannon's friends, all but one of them married, are discovering that partying isn't as easy as it used to be and a night on the town often ends at midnight.
The one constant in the last 11 years is the close tie that binds the five friends.
"I don't think there's many people in this whole world who have a friendship like we do," Melanie says. "I will make wonderful friends in life, but I will never have friends like this in life."